


The Jacket

by caitfair24



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-05 15:47:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18831745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caitfair24/pseuds/caitfair24
Summary: How did Bucky find that spectacular bomber jacket? My submission for day 14 of @itsbuckysworld‘s Hello Spring 2019 Writing Challenge. Includes Endgame references. My prompt was "When they met again."





	The Jacket

A tie isn’t the most imaginative birthday gift, but the degrees of separation between you and the man turning -- thirty? Thirty-one? Eighty? You’re not even sure on that front -- are so vast that nothing more personalized could be hoped for. With a tiny pinch of dismay that you’d basically had the salesman pick out the, uh, most _affordable_ option and wrap it up right there at the counter, you politely push past the long line of customers and head for the mall beyond.

And that’s when you spot him. Tucked into a corner of the store, quite near the entrance. Long dark hair pooling over his shoulders; hands shoved deep into his pockets. In front of him are ranged dozens of jackets, a wall of blue and black and brown, but he’s not looking at any of them. His own shoes seem to be more interesting.

Something clenches in your stomach at the sight of him -- something very close to pity, but that’s a sour word, so you push it away. Replace it with sympathy. A vulnerability rolls from his hunched, secretive pose, and when he feels your gaze upon him, hears the abrupt halt to your tread, he fixes you with cool blue eyes. Suddenly, you want to fix every problem -- major or minor -- in this man’s life.

He looks away just as quickly, shuffling a little closer to the rack in front of him, reaching out with his right hand to pluck an ugly, boxy brown coat, clearly at random. Turning it this way and that, poking at one sleeve, flipping up the collar to check the price.

It’s a great performance.

A glance over your shoulder proves that most of the sales staff are occupied, milling about the busy store during some random three o’clock rush hour. There’s no one available to tell this poor guy that him slipping into that coat would be an absolute crime against humanity.

“Um, hey,” you say, cheeks heating with the boldness of this action. Walking up to a complete stranger and dispensing fashion advice you’re in no way qualified to give? “Do you -- do you need any help?” 

The full force of his attention on you is so damn close to breathtaking you actual have to take a step back -- a rich, intense gaze; dark beard encroaching elegantly on a sharp jaw and plush mouth. Your stomach flips. But where most men, you’d think, would be aware of the effect, of the power of this presence -- he shrinks. Hunches his shoulders and takes a step back, eyes darting to the floor, back up to your face, and then to the wider breadth of the store behind you. “Do you work here?” 

Smiling, you shake your head and hold up the bag in your hand. “Nope. But you just...” _Oh, damn_. How to express this without putting him in an awkward position? “Just...you, um, look like you might need a second opinion.” You gesture to the coat in his hand.

The man loosens with a faint chuckle, shoulders relaxing into your light criticism. “It’s that bad, huh?”

His smile doesn’t reach his eyes, but you know you’ve crossed some sort of threshold. Emboldened, you take a step forward, gently taking the hanger from his grip and sliding it back on the rack -- not missing the way he stiffens and steps away from you, a sharp exhale in time with his polite recoil. _Okay. That’s fine_.

“Do you want help?” Consent is a heady thing, a hand outstretched, and briefly, you wonder why you’re bothering at all. Why is this important? You’ve accomplished your own mission, why care about his? There’s lunch waiting in the food court, the rest of the afternoon to yourself. Why stand there and offer this to a stranger, a stranger clearly nervous in your presence? 

The answer is in his nod. A slight incline of his head, a compression of his lips that might actually be a genuine smile this time. He moves to accommodate you, give you room in front of the rack. You tuck your own purse and purchase on a low table by the mirror to the right, offering all manner of overpriced socks, and begin flipping through the jackets. “Is there an occasion?” you ask briskly, focusing your attention on the smooth glide of fabric beneath your fingertips, not the spice of his cologne, nor yet the trembling little thrill chasing down your spine, a frenzy of pleasure at his proximity.

A leather jacket with a unique cut catches your eye first, and you pull it loose, admiring the cut and the glint of silver from a few zippers. A bright smile firmly in place, you turn to him, realizing he has yet to answer your question.

“That’s too...it might be too casual,” he says gruffly, reaching up with a gloved hand to tuck a few strands of hair behind his ear. “It’s nice, but not for this.” 

You nod, replacing it on the rack with a small twinge of disappointment. “So it’s a formal event?” 

A shadow passes over his gaze, and he swiftly looks away again, down at his feet, both hands back firmly in his pockets. Guilt and embarrassment flickers in your stomach as you realize what you’ve done -- forcibly insert yourself into this shy man’s day, pushing your presence and your opinions on him when he’s  clearly just too nervous and polite to tell you to screw off. 

You choke out an apology, mortification clear in your suddenly jerky movements, as you bend down to retrieve your bags. “I’ll just --” 

“No, wait.” The man sighs, runs his fingers through his hair. “I’m sorry. It’s just...it’s been a tough couple of weeks. It’s been hell.” 

Of course it has; you’ve been watching the news. As usual, in the gaping, raw aftermath of disaster, you were actually amazed that something as normal as birthday parties for coworkers existed; that you could walk through the mall without that dull, throbbing pain in your heart and your heart. Do something as simple as look forward to mindless shopping, followed by a cheap, greasy lunch. 

But there’s also hope, isn’t there? It burns in these small liberties, in the slow, gentle reclaiming of normalcy, as a shattered world settles back into familiar contours. Nightmares may burst bright in the dark; trembling hands and random phone calls -- “ _Just wanted to hear your voice_ ” -- may structure your days, but there’s also that hope. It sits in the wings, benevolent and kind. 

Just as you’d tried to be. 

Sometimes, though, it needs a little nudging. “My name’s Y/n,” you murmur, stretching out a hand. 

Nearly a beat too long, your hand stays there, dangling in the wide space between strangers and friends. 

His advance is soft. Uncertain. Some eager pop song in the background forming a discordant soundtrack to the movement -- but then his fingers grip yours, the warm press of someone new sending sparks of excitement skittering across your skin. “I’m...I’m Bucky,” he says quietly, glancing up briefly. “Nice to meet you.” 

Headlines from years ago flash through your mind, a ticker-tape stream of vivid history. Panic blooming all over the world; suspicion rising high in the wake of an explosion and terrible loss. And you remember. 

You know. 

Bucky releases your hand; rue on his tongue, so tangible you can taste it, too. His mouth becomes a thin line; his eyes shadowed again. A fuller name sits between you -- an emblem hidden now beneath this red hoodie, this plaintive smile. 

But a killer doesn’t shop for a new jacket, does he? He doesn’t apologize for being who he is, he doesn’t check the price of an ugly coat. He doesn’t shake a stranger’s hand, toss his name into the blue. 

Hope just needs a little push, remember. 

You smile reassuringly, slipping into an old game. One you can barely remember, but you do your best. It’s gentler than you’re used to, structured by coats and jackets and a blazer that sits oddly on his shoulders. The dark, gold-threaded secret of vibranium is beautiful, shimmering inharmoniously under the fluorescent lights -- so out of place in this world of flimsy wood, tinny music. Your eyes meet his over the curve of his arm, and he swallows hard -- used to rejection. To fear. But you don’t give it to him.  

With tender fingers, you smooth fabric down his arms -- but only after asking him if that’s okay. 

Bucky turns in the mirror when you ask him to, the white of his t-shirt forming a jarring contrast with most of the more formal pieces you pick out. When you reach for the lightest on the spectrum ranged in front of you -- a pale greyish-blue bomber jacket that seems to you to smack of springtime and better thoughts -- he resists. Steps away, bumping into your side as he does. 

“It’s not as casual as you think,” you say soothingly. “With the right jeans, it’ll be fine. And it’ll be so comfortable.” 

That’s all you want for him, and it surprises you. Years ago, he was a name in your history book, a question on a final. And then he was a headline, a byline, a threat across the ocean. Now, though? He’s a man in front of you, a man who shivered five minutes ago when your fingers grazed his neck as you untucked his long hair from the collar of dark grey blazer. 

He’s not a story anymore; he’s a man with pain inscribed on every inch of him. A man with gentle hands and a grateful smile. A man who smells of coffee and cologne. A man aching with the weight of his own history -- and you want to do this for him. You want to help him, in this tiny, insignificant way, so that he can remember what too many people have forgotten -- that hope on the edges of every dark moment; a starburst of kindness in a cold, lonely galaxy. 

The blue jacket won’t fix everything. It won’t erase the Winter Soldier, it won’t take away...it won’t do it. 

But it might fall lightly about his shoulders, might bring out the silvery blue of his eyes. It might look good with black jeans and it might make him smile even wider.

So you hold it out. Ready to argue as kindly as possible, hoping you won’t have to say the part about his eyes in order to accomplish this goal. 

“It’s not that,” he says softly. His gaze, when it finds yours, is heavy with...with guilt? “It’s gotta be black. Or something dark, at least.” 

“Black?” 

He nods. 

And a rush of bile simmers in your throat. 

_Of course._

You permit an ashamed apology to tumble from your lips, as you awkwardly shove the jacket back onto the rack. Hands trembling with mortification, you avoid his gaze. “I-I should’ve realized -- God, I’m so, so sorry, I j--” 

Bucky’s hand grazes your elbow, and though the touch is feather-light, it guides you, turns you, focuses you on his face. On the softness of his eyes, the eyes that probably couldn’t get any bluer anyways, no matter what he wore. “It’s okay, Y/n. I should’ve said something. But you don’t have to feel bad.” 

How could you not? How could you have forgotten those losses? The price of this peace now, the cost of this afternoon -- time to spare; a faint flush on your cheeks; the company of a good-looking man -- was something to be mourned. And you’d railroaded over that with these cheap, insipid advances. 

You feel sick. It’s right there, pooling in your stomach, sour as your own grief had once been. And he can read every inch of it -- he is, after all, a soul well-schooled in pain. 

“Hey.” His voice is raspy, and you’re not sure why, a brush of fabric against your side encourages you to look up again, fixing a watery gaze on the jacket in his hand. “How about this? It’s kind of the same, isn’t it?”

As he slips it on, he softens at the edges. Zips it up to the rounded collar, and you reach again to loosen his hair. Two hands in his pockets, a man of simple black leather and a tender smile, a little reassurance for _you_  this time. “What do you think?” 

In another context, in another world -- you would step forward now, trace two hands down the planes of his covered chest. Coax a blush to his cheeks, ask him out for a coffee. 

But you can’t. Not now. So you nod. “You should buy it,” you suggest, your voice a guilt-laced whisper. 

Bucky shoves his arms back into his red hoodie, cradling the bomber jacket in his vibranium hand, fishing for a wallet with his other. “Thanks for your help, Y/n,” he murmurs. “Really. I appreciate it.” 

And then he’s gone. Leaving you to the crush of the crowd outside, the cool marble tile of the floor a poor reprieve for the heat of his presence. You tumble through a litany of emotions as you walk, that anonymous present clutched tight in your hand; the brighter glow of his off-guard gratitude a much better gift. 

Outside, a miracle lingers in the air. Five years that surge and spend, absence and aching loss, and you resume -- as everyone does, in one way or another -- the steady walk home, the eager pace of the liberated. 

* * *

Weeks slip by. The tie is gratefully received, but the birthday cake is dry and the icing tastes of cardboard. 

Around you, the world rebuilds, as it always does. In bits and pieces, sometimes physically -- in the rise of a new building; more cars on the road -- and in softer ways, too. Baseball games and concerts. Buskers playing for joy along the subway tracks. 

It’s a Saturday, and there’s nothing else to do -- so you find yourself at the mall. Wandering through stores with no goal in mind, no ideas. Money and time disappear in this idle interim, so that by four o’clock you’ve spent thirty dollars on candles and eighteen on a shirt you’ll probably be returning tomorrow anyway -- it’s far too itchy, but the salesgirl was so nice and eager, you couldn’t help but walk away with it. 

The food court is a busy hive, cresting waves of people queuing for pizza and Thai and ice cream and something claiming to be Vietnamese -- and you find yourself struggling to navigate the full, heaving press of the crowd with a coffee in one hand and a limp taco in the other, bags jostling from the cradle of your elbow. 

It’s busy, so busy, so anonymous that you can simply melt into the crush of a refilled world -- but when your name blooms on the din, you freeze and spin, trying to orient yourself. 

“That’s, uh, an interesting combination.” 

At a small table to your left, shy grin firmly in place, sits Bucky -- hair neatly combed, tucked carefully behind his ears; that black bomber jacket tucked snuggly up to his chin. He looks -- you want to say _cozy,_ but somehow, that word struggles to find purchase against the sharp edges of his history. 

Something flutters in your stomach at the sight of him, at the rich timbre of his voice -- suddenly casting away the deafening buzz of the food court. But it’s inappropriate, isn’t it? What was there between you?

A forty-minute fashion show. A politely impersonal parting. 

Over the past few weeks, you’ve done your best to push away those lingering questions -- that, if things had been different, if the two of you had simply been two people in a store, engaged in a gently flirtatious repartee, your free time might be spent quite differently. Had he not been preparing for a sombre occasion; had the world not fallen to pieces again and again over the past several years, sometimes with him at the centre of the action. 

If he could just be a handsome man in a nice jacket; you an interested someone with a coffee and a sad little taco in hand. A meet-cute if you’d ever seen one. 

Your stomach flips now, forty-five minutes of history suddenly seeming to weigh a ton and heated from within. “Yeah, I, uh...” 

The shortest line-ups were at the cheap coffee place and a half-hearted taco stand, you explain, shifting from one foot to the other and casting your gaze about wildly for inspiration. For direction. 

Bucky seems somehow more defined than the last you’d seen him, more sure of himself as he swipes away rolled-up paper wrappers from the surface of the table, enough for at least four or five burgers. He gestures to the chair across from him. “It’s busy today,” he adds, by way of invitation. “If you want to --” 

Oh, you do. Of course you do. He’s got kind eyes and that delicious scruff; a tentative smile that makes you think of first dates and stumbling dances. There’s a warmth tingling through your veins as you slide into the seat, now fully resolved that you _can’t_  eat this taco in front of him. 

Not a big loss. 

But there _is_ a big loss sitting between you, the unspoken footnote to your first meeting, and Bucky clears his throat against it. “I don’t think I thanked you properly,” he says quietly, tapping lightly on the lid of his paper cup. “For all your help that day.”

_All your help?_

What had you done? You hadn’t saved the world. You hadn’t lost everything. You’d dragged his attention away from an ugly coat, guided him into a stylish kind of mourning -- which to you, now, seemed a flippant intent. A selfish goal. 

You flush at the memory of it. Shrug and take what you hope is a nonchalant sip of your coffee. “You said thank you, Bucky, and honestly -- it was no big deal.” 

But the look on his face, the weight in his eyes -- the abrupt way he leans forward, mouth slack for a second with uncertainty -- that tells you otherwise. “It _was_  a big deal,” he says quietly. 

Gentle touch is new for him, he explains shyly. He’s getting better at receiving -- he no longer jerks away from handshakes and embraces, though only when he can see them coming from a mile away, from someone familiar.

“That day...that day was rough.” He takes a sip of soda, swallows hard, and then tries to meet your gaze again. “I asked my friend Sam to just let me handle it on my own, finding something to wear, just because there was so much going on. But the problem...the problem...” 

Bucky is clearly not sure where to go from here, and you feel that familiar clenching in your stomach -- empathy squeezing out an instinct, an urge to be kind. You reach over to brush your fingers across his knuckles where they clasp the paper cup far too tightly. 

He relaxes at once. Hand flipping and opening, palm-up, against the plastic surface of the table. 

“The problem was, everything was so busy. So new. I’d never been in a store like that, and it had been a long time since I’d gone, you know, shopping. And the choices.” Bucky looks around, the hundreds of people milling about, pressing and pulling -- an entire universe within this small space. Bumping into tables, eyes on phones or trained on the next destination. Heads filled with separate lives. Walking in the wake of a massive miracle. 

“There were so many choices,” he says, something sad and weary tinging the words. “Colours and sizes and shapes. And I realized I couldn’t handle it, and I was just about to give up, and then you” -- Bucky slides his hand a little closer, and it’s a plaintive, little-boy request, isn’t it? Gingerly, you touch your fingers to the dry, smooth landscape of his palm -- “you just walked up. And you helped me. And even when you knew who I really was, you still helped me. And you, you touched me.”

It’s awe on his face. Faint and shy, but it’s there -- and suddenly, three fingertips tracing his palm seems so damn  _intimate._ But you can’t pull away. So even as heat creeps up your neck and his eyes bore into yours, you let your fingers play. Watching as tendons twitch in his wrist and a smile blooms on his face. Around you, the soft roar of the crowd seems to fade, leaving just this space. This plastic table and balled-up wrappers, this sad taco and cooling coffee. Soda gone flat in the century of this exchange. 

“Intimate,” yes, but not enticing -- not yet --  and there’s a prettiness to that fact.  Bucky talks as you touch him, an introduction spilling from him, coaxed from him with the comfort of your fingertips. He comes to the mall two times a week for lunch at the food court. Part of his recovery. Crowds are tough to get used to, but the food court, with its two main areas for entrance and exits, provides him with a good, manageable immersion. He can see a way out; can see an enemy’s way in. 

Plus, the burgers are great. 

He thanks you again, for the jacket. As his hand closes around yours, you recall, with a little jolt, that you _didn’t_  actually find it. He’d chosen it himself. Plucked it from all the others, claimed a choice and a decision and an identity all at once. All by himself. 

When you point this out, he flushes a little, looks down at the leather front of it, a subtle silver zipper glinting back up at him. “Yeah, but you started it all,” he points out, offering a slight squeeze to your fingers that makes your head spin. 

“And I saved you from that horrendous brown one,” you laugh. 

Gentle taunts and jokes are tossed on the air between you, charging the space with something new, something promising. Something that makes your stomach flip again and pinpricks of excitement spark on your skin so bright and _real_  you’re sure he can see them. “It, um, it looks _really_ good on you,” you say warmly, and then apologize. Apologize again because you know where he wore it first. You know why he needed black. 

A fingertip on your wrist. Curious and hesitant, he traces a tender pattern of reassurance onto your skin. “Thank you,” he murmurs. “You’re, uh, you’re pretty sweet, doll.” 

_Doll?_

It’s old-world; it’s charming. 

It’s him. 

The hours slip and grow into something brighter, until too many grumpy patrons need your table and Bucky’s phone beeps with an order to come home. “I’ve got work,” he says apologetically, tossing out the wrappers and that poor little excuse for a taco. “But...would you...would you...” 

He doesn’t know how to say it. Runs his fingers through his hair as though the right words are there, just there at the tip of his tongue, at the edge of his memory -- 

But you save him again. 

“I’d love to.” 

A brief exchange of numbers, a promise to text, to arrange something more substantial than the food court at the mall, and you watch Bucky walk away. Shoulders wrapped safely in the black press of -- what, exactly? Grief? Recovery? Purpose? 

Maybe, you muse, weaving your way through the thinning crowd -- maybe it’s choice he wears so well. History hasn’t been kind to him in that. A series of cruel circumstance and players stole choice from him again and again, you know that. 

But he _chose_ that jacket. And then he chose you. 


End file.
